Strict constructionist ref denies Detroit Lions a victory, makes case for referee activism on Calvin Johnson call

I’m a big believer that rules should be allowed to bend as common sense dictates. Case in point: in Sunday’s Bears-Lions game, receiver Calvin Johnson’s would-be game-winning touchdown catch that was ruled a drop by the ref.



Of course, the catch (pun intended) is that technically, the call was correct. The NFL rule states:

If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.

But even if the call was correct, it still wasn’t right. Anybody who watched the play knew that Calvin Johnson caught that ball. Even if the letter of the law said it was a drop, common sense tells us it was a catch. We just know it.

I wonder what Antonin Scalia would have thought? Should the refs be strict constructionists and call the game by the letter of the law? Should the NFL add even more caveats and conditions to specify exactly what a catch looks like? Or should the rules be simplified and refs given the freedom to make judgment calls when common sense dictates?

I think we need a little referee activism.

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Please somebody ban the phrase "judicial activism"

Please somebody ban the phrase "judicial activism"

Nothing bores me quite like a Supreme Court nomination. The opposition party questions the nominee's credentials. The credentials come out to be impeccable. Pro-lifers or pro-choicers wave their arms around. After some formalities, the nominee eventually gets confirmed. *YAWN*

That said, there is a phrase that gets me to no end in these debates, and that's "judicial activism."

Opponents of activism typically say something like "it's the judge's job to interpret the law, not to make the law." Conservatives accuse liberal justices of "legislating from the bench." Liberals counter with statistics showing that actually, conservative justices overturn more laws.

The truth is, "judicial activism" is one of those topics where everyone is wrong (except me), because the phrase itself is a meaningless term. The idea that there is a single, True meaning of a law has no basis in reality, because ultimately, the meaning of any text is up to some human's interpretation. How do you interpret a law's meaning without making some kind of value judgment? What is the "true" meaning of a term like "cruel and unusual punishment"? Answer: it's up to someone's interpretation.

Simply put, there is no logical way to claim that one judge is more activist than another, because any time you interpret something, you are committing an interpretive act. The phrase "judicial activism" is a tautology, and I could follow judicial nominations happily if it were dropped from political discourse.